News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1887-02-03
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: DISTRIBUTION of Rewards


own eyes year before last, tell me
that in the Coliseum at Rome, where
prosecutors use1 to let out the half-starved
lions to eat up Christians, there is now
planted the figure of a cross. And / rejoice
TO know that the upright piece of wood
mailed to transverse piece has become the
symbol not more of suffering than of vic
tory. 1t is of Christ the Coaqueror that my
text speaks. As a kingly warrior, having
subdued an empire, might divide the palaces,
anu mansions, and cities, and valleys, and
mountains among his officers, 50 Christ is
gong to divide up all the earth, and all the
heavens, among his people, and you and |
VIII have to take our share if we are strong
IN faith and strong in our Christian loyalty,
for my text declares it: HE shall divide the
spoil with the strong"
The capture of this round planet for Christ
Is not so much of a lob as you might ina CINE,
when the church takes of its coat ami rolls
up Its sleeves for the work, as it will There
are sixteen hundred millions of people now
In the world, and four hundred and fifty mil
lions are Christians. Subtract four hundred
and fifty millions who are Christians from
the sixteen hundred millions, and there are
eleven hundred aud fifty millions left. Di-
vide the eleven hundred and fifty millions
who are not Christians by the four hundred
and fifty millions who are,ChriStianS, and you
viii find that we shall have to average less
than three souls each brought by US into the
Kingdom of God to have the whole world re
up to Its full duty no Christian will be WILLING
TO bring less than three souls into the king
dom Of God. l hope ard pray, Almighty
God, that may bring ten thousand. l know
evangellsts who have already brought 80, 600
each for the kingdom of God. There
are 100000 people whose one and only
and absorbing business in the world
is to save souls. When you take
these things into consideration and that
the Christian will have to average the bring
Nf
of our Lord, all impossibility vanishes from
this omnipoteut crusade. Why, l know a
Sabbath-school teacher who has for many
Years been engaged in training the young,
and she has had different ella ses, and they
averaged to class, and they were all con-
verted, and ) times are s., as near as
l can calculate. So that she brought her
into the Kingdom of God and had - to
spare. My grandmother prayed her chill
dren into the Kingdom of Christ and
her grandchildren, and 1 hope all her
great grandchildren, for God remembers
a prayer seEenty-fve years old as though it
were only minute old, and so she brought
her three into the Kingdom of God and had
more than one hundred to spare. Besides
that, through the telephone and the tele-
viii be brought within compass in ten min
uteS. Beside that, omnipOtence, omnipreSence
and omniSclence are presiding in this matter
of the worlds betterment, and that takes
of the impossibilities into the possibilities,
and then out of the possibilities into the
probabilities, and then out of the probabili-
ties into the certainties. The building of the
Union Pacific Railroad from ocean to ocean
was greater undertaking than the girdling
of the earth with the Gospel, for the one en-
terPriSe depended upon the human arm while
the other depends upon Almightiness.
Do really mean all the earth viii surren-
der to Christ? Yes How about the unin-
viting portions! VIII Greenland be evan
gelized! Tho possibility is that after few
mOged hundred brave lives are dashed out
among the icebergs, that great refrigerator,
the Polar region, will be given up to the wal
rus and bear, and that the inhabitants will
come down by invitation into tolerable eli
mates, or those climates may soften, and, as
it has been positively demonstrated that the
Arctic region was once blooming garden
and a fruitful field, those regions may change
climate and again be a blooming garden and
a fruitful field. 1t is proved beyond contro-
versy by German and American scientists,
that the Arctic regions were the first portions
of this world inhabitable; the world hot
beyond human endurance, those regions
we're of course the first to be cool
enough for human foot and human
lung. 1t was positively proved that the Arc
tic region was tropical climate. Professor
Heer, of Zurich, says the remains of flowers
have been found in the Arctic, showing it
was like Mexico for climate and it is found
which all the flowers descended. Professor
Wallace says the remains of all styles of ami
NAL life are found in the Arctic, including
those animals that can live only in warm
climates. Now, that Arctic region which
has leen demonstrated by flora, and fauna
and geological argument to have been as full
of vegetation and life as our Florida, may be
turned back to its original bloom and glory,
or it will be shut up as a museum OF crystals
for curiosity seekers once in n while to visit
F3r1t PCff IL an n N
belong TO the Redeemer'S realm.
What about other unpToductive or repul-
siVe regions All the deserss will be irri-
goted, the waters will be forced up to the
great American desert between here and the
Pacific by machinery now known or yet to
be invented, and, as Great Salt Lake City
has no rain and could not raise an apple or a
bushel of wheat in a hundred years without
artificial help but is now through such means
one great garden, so all the unprOductive
parts of al the continents will be turned into
harvest fields and orchards. A half dozen
lie Lesssps viii furnish the world with all
the canals needed, and viii change the course
OF rivers and open new lakes and the great
Sahara Desert will be cut up into farms
with an astounding yield of bushels to the
acre. The marsh will be drained of its
waters and cured of its malaria. l saw the
other day what was for many years called
the British Swamp of Ohio, its chief crop
chlllS and fevers but now, by the tiles put in
TO the ground TO carry OFF the surplus moisture
transformed into the richest and healthiest of
regions. The God who wastes nothing, |
think, means that this world, from pole to
pole, has to come to perfection of foliage
and Trultage. For that reason he keeps US
running through space, though so many fires
are blazing down IN its timbers and so many
mock terrOrs have threatened to dash it to
pieces. As soon as the earth is completed
Christ will divide it up among the good
The reason he does not divide it now IS be-
cause it IS MT done. A kind father will not
divide the apple among his children until the
apple Is ripe. In fulfllment of the New
Testmament promise: 1.-THE meek shall in
herit the earth,n and the promise of the Old
Testament: He shall divide the spoils With
the strong the world will be apportioned to
those worthy to possess it.
1t is not so now. In this country. capable
OF holding, feeding, clothing, and sheltering
twelve hundred million people and where
We have only sixty million inhabitants we
nave two millions who cannot get honest
work, and with their families an aggrera-
ton of five millions that are on the verge Of
starvation. Something wrong, most certain
", In some way, there will be a new ap-
poruonment. Many of the millionaire eS-
tateS will crack to pieces on the designations
OF grandchildren, and then dissolve into the
possession OF the masses who now have an
insntliciency.
What, you say, will become of the expen-
ii e anu 6ldDDIdue DultulDRS now devoted TO
debasing amusements? They will become
schools, art galleries, museums, gymnasiums
and churches. The world is already getting
with many of these amusements
and no wonder. What an importation Of
unClean theatrical stuff we have within the
last few years had brought to our shoresl
and professors of religion patroniZing such
thlngsl Having sold out to the devil, why
don't you deliver the goods and go over to
HIM publicly, body, mind, and soul, and
withdraw your name from Christian
churches, and say: "KEow all the world by
these presents that am patron of uncleat-
ness and child of helLn Sworn to be the
Lords, you are periurers.
But at last the tide has turned, and the de-
spISerS of purity Oyerdid the matter A for
eigu actress of base morals arrived intending
to make the tour of the States, but the re-
naming decenCy of our cities rose up aud
Cancelled the contracts, and drove her ba X
from our American stage a woman fit for
neither continent In the name of Almighty
God take these denominations by the throat
If you think these offenses are to 90 on for
ever, YOU 40 not know who the Lord is. God
viii not wait for the Day of Judgment All
these palaces of sin viii become palaces of
Righteousness. They will come into the Dos
session of those strong for virtue and strong
for God. HE shall divide the spoil with
the strong
China and Africa, the two richest portions
of the earth by reason of metals and rare
woods, and inexhaustible productiveness. are
not yet divided up among the good because
they are not ready to be divided Wait IN
til all the doors that Livingstone opened in
Africa shall be entered, and Bishop Taylor
with his band of self-supporting missionaries
have done their work, and the Ashantees and
s -negambians shall know Christ as well as
YOU know Him, and there shall be on the
banks of the Nile and the Niger a higher
than is now to be found
on the hanks of the Hudson, then
Christ will divide uD that continent
among his friends. Wait until China, which